A Terrible Human:Maybe if they'd just shut up about it, not write and draw creepy pony stuff no one would give a fark about them?

Pretty soon it will be illegal to discriminate against them, and jobs will require you to hire at least one Brony to meet affirmative action quotas. The day the first Brony is elected President will be their finest hour.

Look, watching a kid's cartoon is fine. It indicates your literacy level is low if that's your primary form of entertainment, but given that the highest-rated news network is Fox you're not alone in having that problem.

Just... do not bother other people with it, that's being annoying, and don't try to make it into a core/dominant part of your identity, that's outright near psychopathic.

// Rule of thumb: if you're naming yourself some made-up or grammatically dodgy term based on your hobby, your obsession has become unhealthy. "I'm a gamer" falls into the same general category, as does any cutesy portmanteau describing people that like a certain sport team.

Jim_Callahan:Look, watching a kid's cartoon is fine. It indicates your literacy level is low if that's your primary form of entertainment, but given that the highest-rated news network is Fox you're not alone in having that problem.

Just... do not bother other people with it, that's being annoying, and don't try to make it into a core/dominant part of your identity, that's outright near psychopathic.

// Rule of thumb: if you're naming yourself some made-up or grammatically dodgy term based on your hobby, your obsession has become unhealthy. "I'm a gamer" falls into the same general category, as does any cutesy portmanteau describing people that like a certain sport team.

^This. And this goes for "Whovian", "Trekkie", "Team Jacob", or what-have-you.

As a fanfic writer (and aspiring novelist) what is wrong with fanfiction? Yes there is a LOT of trash in fanfics, maybe even more so than actual novels (and there is plenty of badly written novels out there) but amongst all that there are some real gems, especially in Harry Potter.

/if you have not written or seriously read a fanfic, you don't get to have opinions about fanfics.

I watch it for the secret messages and understories. First episode: Twilight, the junior bureaucrat, of the totalitarian Equestrian state ruled by the undying Princess Celestia, comes to watch over a minor backwater as training. There she meets the Party Organizer, the Costumer, the one pony responsible for the apple supply, and the regional surveillance drone. She has a hench dragon.

And there's a bit of rabbit hole. From obvious compositional issues (ponies appear to be a nanite goo, thus they can bend and smoosh) to fundamental societal issues (Spike operates the last film reel before it goes poof, the train fueled by coal one season and hauled by ponies the next). Celestia may actually be Eris, she owns a Golden Apple tree according to something Spike said.

Some of my favorite episodes have an anti-intervention understory. Sometimes someone tries to help, but it only hurts. And not just that Breezies episode.

I think Ponies is popular with the male audiences because it combines the best of what traditionally "male-targeted" media has to offer with the best of what traditionally "female-targeted" media has to offer: The combination of strong characters, storytelling, and world-building and strong emotional and moral aspects. And it doesn't dumb any of it down.

I'd originally avoided Ponies simply because I figured it was a typical "girls' show" where all the characters were carbon copies of each other who were individualized simply by their colors, and any problems they ran into were never more dire than deciding what dress to wear.

But it's not. Every character is individualized in personality, and they all have flaws and problems that most real people can relate to, and go about dealing with those problems in ways that can actually apply to real life rather than having "the power of love" solve everything magically.

If you've never seen the show and think it's not "adult" enough (as if that term really has any meaning), it has episode that deal with problems like:Anxiety over deadlines you have nothing to show forMarketing vs. EngineeringLearning disabilitiesPerformance anxietyBullyingEthnic tensionsStanding up to someone you care aboutTaking on more than you can handle to "prove yourself"Dealing with being swindledBeing passionate about something that no one else cares about

And just general parables on how to deal with life without blowing stuff up or being a jackass, because those aren't actually options in real life but tend to be the only solutions provided in traditionally "male" media.

DjangoStonereaver:I've got nothing against Bronies, but of all fannish subcultures, it is the one that makes me scratch myhead.

I've just assumed it's one of those jokes that got of hand and morphed into an "Emperor's New Clothes" sort of thing. Someone on 4chan thought it would be funny to pretend to like a show for little kids, other folks joined in, and it just snowballs to the point where nobody's willing to admit was just a joke. People keep asserting that there's some sophisticated layer of humor buried in there, aimed at adults. Yeah, maybe assburgerey adults that are fascinated with pastel colors and memorizing names of things. I actually forced myself to watch an episode. There was absolutely nothing in there that wasn't aimed at your average eight-year-old. There were exactly zero things aimed at adults.

Yeah, I know, stop liking what I don't like. Well, the truth is what you like is designed entirely for little kids and is the most vapid, unsophisticated entertainment available.

Prank Call of Cthulhu:I actually forced myself to watch an episode. There was absolutely nothing in there that wasn't aimed at your average eight-year-old. There were exactly zero things aimed at adults.

Out of curiosity, what episode was it? Like all shows, it has its share of dud episodes. I wouldn't blame someone for hating Doctor Who based solely on "Love and Monsters", Star Trek: TNG based solely on season 2, Star Wars based solely on the prequels, or the Batman movies based solely on "Batman and Robin".

If you only watched the first episode of MLP, it is, admittedly, pretty vapid compared to the majority of the rest of the series. "Lesson Zero" is usually the introductory episode I recommend to people who are curious about the show. It's not necessarily the "best" episode (though it is very good), but it's probably one of the easier episodes to watch without any prior knowledge of the show and has interactions with pretty much the entire main and secondary cast, plus a conflict that pretty much everyone has experienced at some point.

/I remember introducing a doubting friend to the show via that episode, and within five minutes she was shouting, "OH MY GOD, TWILIGHT, I FEEL YOU!"//She's an overworked grad student

"Princess Celestia is amazing... Of all the characters on the show, that's the one I've come to admire the most. She's lived a thousand years and it feels like it..." he tells the camera passionately. "Any adult, who has really gone through it all and been really thoughtful and really caring and anything like that, is going to be a Princess Celestia."

parkerlewis:How does that quote go..."Let it harm none, then do as thou wilt" or something like that.

A sub-culture that presents a public face of being harmless while slyly encouraging bestiality and pedophilia is not doing "no harm". The harmless members are providing cover and legitimacy to deviants.